


stumble until you don’t

by anupturnedboat



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst and Feels, F/M, Friendship, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Not Canon Compliant, Romantic Friendship, Unresolved Romantic Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-26
Updated: 2016-04-26
Packaged: 2018-06-04 14:34:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6662674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anupturnedboat/pseuds/anupturnedboat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A sense of dread settles low in her gut and she knows it has nothing to do with being a banshee.  And everything to do with Stiles.</p><p>Stiles, Lydia, confessions and what could have been. 5x9 -ish</p>
            </blockquote>





	stumble until you don’t

Late summer rain like this is welcome, here, where everything is brown and brittle, and summer never ends.  It’s shitty to drive in, though. The windshield wipers are desiccated and make horrible sounds on the glass that make Lydia feel like screaming.

But she won’t - _she’s so fucking tired of screaming._

She can’t sleep, in her dreams she’s always drowning (or running or screaming). It feels like she’s chasing clarity. The kind that comes when the other end of the rope is tied to something solid and true.  But right now there is nothing on the other end and she’s stumbling over too many tangled ropes.

Then there’s the other niggling worry stumbling over itself in her brain – how long things with her mother were going to be like this. The cold silences, and the not speaking about lizard girls and blood and mercury and death. It would be so much easier if her mom were like Stiles’ dad or Scott’s mom – maybe then she wouldn’t feel so alone.

And tired - so tired, that she almost doesn’t see the familiar shape haphazardly parked on the darkened road ahead.  Her heart drops into her stomach, because hadn’t Stiles just bemoaned the fact that his beloved Jeep was pretty much dead?  But there it is. She can’t tell what state it is in, in the dark, but a sense of dread settles low in her gut, and she knows it has nothing to do with being a banshee.  And everything to do with Stiles.

She pulls over behind him and waits.  Surely he has noticed her headlights, but nothing happens, and a familiar kind of fear uncoils somewhere near her heart as she steps out of her car into the rain.

The air is thick and steamy, and her clothes are sticking to her as she reaches the jeep’s driver side door. He’s got his head in hands and jumps when she raps on the window.

Rain is dripping off her nose and through her lashes as she motions for him to roll down the window.

“Lydia? What are you doing out here?”  It sounds like he has been crying and that scares her more than certain nightmares she’s been having lately.

“I could ask you the same thing,” she shouts over the rain like she’s annoyed. It camouflages the fear, the aching worry at how fragile and tired and wrung out how he looks. 

He stares at her for a long moment, and she shifts uncomfortably under his gaze.  Sometimes, when they are alone together it feels like the universe just stops, and the air fills with a lifetime of things unsaid. But now is not the time for stuff like that.  _It is pretty much never the time for things like that._

“So you’re just randomly driving around in the rain then? It isn’t some kind of banshee thing?”

“ _Stiles_ ,” she huffs exasperated (because that is actually exactly what she had been doing and she doesn’t know why)“Scooch,” she orders through the open window and motions for him to open the door. He does, and she slides into the drivers seat while he crawls into the passenger side.

She’s aware that her clothes are now soaked through and clinging to her in certain places, and that if it were anyone else she’d be disdainfully trying not to notice them noticing.  But Stiles seems far away, and the idea of him noticing isn’t repulsive at all.  Not that he is noticing.

“I thought you said it was a lost cause,” she says cautiously motioning towards the hood.

“It is now,” Stiles says roughly.  “There’s too much broken to fix.”

She lets what feels like a double meaning go. Whatever is wrong they shouldn’t be sitting out here like this; there are always too many bad things lurking around Beacon Hills.  “Let me take you home. We’ll call Triple A in the morning.”

Surprisingly, he doesn’t protest, and they sprint to her car, the sloppy, muggy rain making everything look out of focus and further away than it really is.

They drive in silence, which is nearly impossible for Stiles, and that solidifies what she already knows – that something is terribly wrong.

She parks outside his house. His father’s cruiser is in the driveway.  She doesn’t want to let him go, not without knowing what is wrong. “Stiles-”

“I can’t,” he cautions, unbuckling his seatbelt.  “This is on me," he says in that rough way that is so unlike Stiles.  "I won’t drag you into this.”

“I’m already in this. We’re all already in this.”

“No, what I’ve done - Scott’s right, it isn’t how we are. And I’m just-just always making all the wrong choices.”

He balls his hands into fists; they rest on this thighs, and she wishes she had the courage to reach out and touch, to unravel, to combine. But there is distance between them, something fragile and strange that hadn’t been there before, so she doesn’t.

Still, he’s hurting, broken, and it makes her heart ache. For him, for her, for all of them, because when did they get so old and tired and sad? And was this all the future held? “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to,” she says to the top of his head, to his tight fists. “But I won’t sleep tonight (ever, she thinks) if you don’t tell me that you are going to be alright.”

He looks up then, searches her face. She shivers. _You’re my anchor, I’m your tether,_ she wants to say. But she bites her lip instead and looks away.

“Things are bad,” he finally says.

That saying about how things get worse before they get better repeats itself over and over in her mind. And maybe she doesn’t want to know, because seriously, how many more bad things can she (any of them) take? “Things are never going to be the same,” he confides miserably.

“Stiles? What does that mean?” It’s hard to keep the fear out of her heart, but her voice is steady, and she raises her hand half way before letting it fall back on her lap. She can’t shake the urge to touch him, to push the damp hair off his forehead, to wrap him up close, never let him go.

“I’m going to lose Scott. I’m going to lose everyone.”

It’s the stupidest thing he’s ever said. She’s sure of it.

“My dad - God, he’s never going to be able to look at me ever again.”

“Stiles, you dad loves you no matter what. That is a fact.”

“Not after this, I’ll lose him too. Scott, my dad - everyone.”

She wants him to know; she wants him to see that there is no losing her, that all this time she’s been drowning, he’s been anchoring. Even when he does not mean too, even when he's holding someone else in place.

She unlocks her seatbelt and pulls him close, her hand on his cheek. The world is narrowed down to flecks of gold and long, long lashes.  Her heart does that thing where it beats wildly in her chest, and she is not opposed to him hearing it if it means he will understand how much he means to her.  She can’t say the words. They’re too dangerous, too capable of changing things forever.  Instead, she glares at him, “Not me. Not ever.”

“If you knew-”

“I don’t need to,” she interrupts.

“I killed Donovan.”

It’s shocking, but then so is everything else. Their world anyway, upside down and inside out. “You had no other choice. Donovan was dangerous. He was going to hurt you or someone else,” she answers meeting his deflated gaze resolutely. After all, he is the boy who has saved her life in more ways, and too many times to count. She doesn’t need the rest of the story. She knows him.

“I’ve hurt people,” he says imploringly. And she thinks; _Allison,_ even though neither of them says her name out loud. “And it’s not just something that I can-,” he chokes out, “you know,” he says gesticulating with his hands.

“I don’t think you are supposed to,” Lydia finds herself saying, her mind still on Allison. Because for a long time they didn't say her name, and then they did, but now it hurts all over again. “Get over it, I mean.”

He can’t look at her, and it hits her what he thinks she’s saying, and she fumbles to fix it, to let him know that he isn’t the monster he imagines himself to be. “I don't think any of us are. The things we've done or been through or failed to stop are going to stay with us, maybe forever.”

He slides down in the seat and pinches the bridge of his nose. He can’t look at her, and she searches for the words he needs her to say.

"It’s why I-,” she starts, rewinds, takes a breath, rewords, to get it right, “Sometimes you get put in impossible situations, and you always do the thing that saves all your friends. Sometimes it goes fantastically wrong, and sometimes people still get hurt, but I think, that’s probably just statistically a chance we are taking with werewolves and wendigos and whatever else is out there.”

The look he gives her is inscrutable, and she can’t hold his gaze.

“And Stiles? You’re the best person I know, even when things go bad.”

He drops his head to her shoulder, and she finds herself grasping at his damp t-shirt and dragging him closer, _closer_ until his breath is hot on her collarbone.

Their skin, this close, is electric.  She’s not surprised and wonders if he’s known this is how it would be all along. What a terrible secret to keep.

The staccato beat of the rain and her heart fill the space inside her car and Lydia can’t help feeling like she’s making a choice, taking a side, and that the world will turn inside out, upside down once again.

"How're you even-,” Stiles sighs against the column of her neck. "God, Lydia, you know how I-" he mumbles, his lips ghosting across her skin. “Since the third grade, and all this time I-”

He doesn’t finish the thought. He’s kissing up her neck then, softly. When he reaches her lips, he pauses.

This is the moment, she knows, that will break the pack apart when she and Stiles will be set adrift. There are tangled lines to consider, Malia and Scott and delicate balances. But she’s drowning, and he’s stumbling, and they are always going to be anchors and tethers, both sides of a rope.

And the timing is wrong the way it always is.

“Don't say it,” she says, taking his hand, unraveling his fist, twining her fingers with his. She wants to hold him in place, keep this moment from flickering out. “Not yet. Not until we figure this out."

"And then?"

"And then," she confirms, pressing her lips to his, flattening his palm over her heart.

 

 


End file.
